


Oh, Hell.

by waitingforthehogwartsletter



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: 's a drabble probs, F/M, Multi, a bit of angst too, also jasper and monty bromance ughhhhh, but duuuuude this got fluffy, i don't usually do fluffy, i like every character in here but jasper is awesome, like i want a friendship like that you get me???, this really turned out too long
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-22
Updated: 2014-08-22
Packaged: 2018-02-14 07:48:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2183697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waitingforthehogwartsletter/pseuds/waitingforthehogwartsletter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She's started to think that whenever the words 'oh, hell' appeared in her mind, they were just serving her as a replacement for the ever-knowing smirk, the blackest of the souls behind the warmest of the eyes, the name that rang in her mind without a stop before the blast off, but only painfully thudded in the distance from the moment she stepped onto the ash covered ground."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>IF: the Mountain Men didn't take the 100, but sort of still made an appearance; IF: we sorta ignored the Ark survivors because honestly most of us are teenagers and we like knowing stuff about teenagers (okay i'm just making excuses for not fitting Abby in here, too - I don't know how I'd write her and Clarke after everything, honestly). And IF we ignored half a things that were said. Just roll with me, will ya?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oh, Hell.

It's not like love comes easy to them.

Nobody in the camp really came to love someone else during the first few months. Yeah, they've bonded – became friends, family even – but not one of them seemed to want an honest, heart to heart, romantic relationship, even if no one ever said it. There was something about living on the edge that first seemed amazing and exciting, but transformed into barely living after the long months of war. Not one of them wanted to become _one_ with another person, when they knew it was just a matter of time before they ended up dead. Clarke envied Jasper _and_ Monty, Bellamy _and_ Octavia, hell, even Finn _and_ Raven! All of them knew they had next to nothing but each other. Even when she thought there was true love in her heart when Finn was in question, Clarke was well aware of the fact that she couldn't let herself fall for him fully, like the way the people that knew each other for years could allow themselves to love.

She'd lost her parents. She lost Wells. She held Charlotte in her hands just to watch the little girl step off the cliff a few days later, pushed by the darkness and hatred that life had served her.

Clarke didn't think she could survive another loss.

 

„Did you sleep with Bellamy?“

No, that wasn't something someone asked Clarke. It was something Clarke asked first.

Raven's beautiful, coal dark eyes seemed to widen in shock and something Clarke initially thought resembled fear. „What?“

Clarke let out a quick, frustrated sigh and ran her eyes around the dropship. This wasn't the time, she thought.

But she had to know.

„ _Did you_ have _sex_ with Bellamy Blake?“

Raven lay on the small cot in the corner of the dropship, just a day after Murphy's bullet found its way into her spine. Just a day after they all lost so much, but gained a chance to live. This time, hopefully without the Grounders on their tail.

„Clarke...“ Raven's eyes were unblinking, her voice cautious.

Clarke swore in her head and looked up at the ceiling, trying to unleash her stress and fury into the cold, unfeeling metal, using only her eyes.

„Never mind.“ She huffed and turned around, shakily going over to where her tools lay, picking up a thread and a needle before making her way out of the dropship.

There were still wounds to tend to.

As Clarke picked her way through the people – her people – keeping a light smile on her face, a steady hand on the needle, a reassuring grip on whoever needed comfort, she did all she could not to think of her own wounds, her own big bleeding mess of a heart that she just _couldn't_ sew back together. Not without...

_Oh, hell_.

„Thanks.“ Miller muttered, quickly pulling his sleeve down over the stitches she had just made on his forearm. „For everything.“ His eyes snapped up and onto hers only for a second before he nodded and turned around, dashing to the wall that was being rebuilt.

She liked Miller. She thought how... how _once_ , she was recommended that he was the exact person to keep close to her side. She didn't have much to count on, but the few moments they spent close to each other, she noticed the will, the selflessness, the passion for life in him that she thought would be overwhelming for her to witness at any other day. But that day, after the blast off, there was only void inside of her, and she clung desperately to whatever spark of life she could get.

And he didn't let her tend to his wound before she had gotten to everyone else first. He made sure there was no one else left in a concerning state before he let her help him.

And the small word of gratitude, the faint spark in Miller's eyes as he finally looked straight into hers, _she knew_. She knew right away _what_ he was thanking her for, and she knew he understood whatever was happening with her in that moment. It didn't matter that he didn't stay to talk it through or comfort her – she didn't think that would be something _she_ wanted.

Clarke just needed... _oh, hell_.

She's started to think that whenever the words _'oh, hell'_ appeared in her mind, they were just serving her as a replacement for the _ever_ -knowing smirk, the _blackest_ of the souls behind the _warmest_ of the eyes, the name that rang in her mind without a stop before the blast off, but only painfully thudded in the distance from the moment she stepped onto the ash covered ground.

Clarke wondered briefly if that exact phrase was there because it was one of the things he used to say quite a lot. _What the hell?!,_ spilled from his lips more times than she could count.

 

Jasper seemed to be in an awful state. Not physically, of course. He got out of the line of fire before it got too risky. Of course, his role became even bigger once he joined her and Raven in the dropship.

Clarke walked slowly around his tent, knowing she'd find him sulking in the shadows with the last bottle of moonshine in his hands.

When she saw him, his face stained with tears and his lip quivering slightly, she felt her own eyes blur with the traitorous water. He half-sat, half-lay against the wooden wall, his legs sprawled, his hands clutching the moonshine to his chest. His eyes were half-lidded, finding hers and speaking a thousand miles per hour without letting out a single sound.

She stumbled and fell down next to him, trying to calm her heart that seemed to finally awaken within her chest.

„Hello, Princess.“ He muttered in _such_ a broken voice. If he only knew how proud of him she was, for everything he's gone through, for everything he's done for all of them, for everything that made him grow up so damn fast. If he only knew how she felt a strong ache at the thought of his success with the blast-off – how she could practically see Monty's teaching behind his knowledge in whatever the hell he had done with the dropship and Raven's _a-thousand-times-damned_ orange wire.

Worst of all, she knew that her nickname didn't come from him as an endearment. He had said it to prove to her that he knew how much she suffered, too. Jasper had a tendency to call her Clarke, even when everyone else lacked the respect to. Not that she thought she deserved an awful lot of respect, but saving lives on daily basis was something scarcely anyone but Jasper seemed to acknowledge. And, of course, him.

Oh, _hell_!

„Hi.“ She said.

The bottle in his hands was completely full. She wondered if he was keeping it with him for the memories and the broken heart, or just to make sure no one else would dare touch it.

„How's it going out there?“ he asked.

Clarke swallowed a lump in her throat. There was just so much space around them – Monty, Finn, Octavia, even _Raven_ with her unstable, injured state, and...

„Oh, _hell_.“ She murmured and let her head fall on Jasper's shoulder. „I don't know how to...“

„Yeah.“ Jasper sighed. „I know, Clarke. I know.“

„Do you _really_?“ she felt her voice strain, her throat squeeze, her eyes get impossibly damp. She closed her eyes, but not before the first tears raced out of them.

She would later think how wonderful Jasper truly was for not lashing out at her. For not kicking her ass for making his losses seem so small compared to hers. But she just wasn't thinking. She couldn't.

„Yeah, well.“ He sighed. „What _are_ the kids gonna do when their dad dies and their mom can't function without him?“

She sniffed soundly. At least he understood her question.

Yes, he _really_ knew how she felt, how she couldn't function without... _oh, hell._

„Do you think Monty and Octavia are dead, too?“ she asked him.

Jasper sniffed, too. „I don't know.“

The missing parts of their storied suddenly seemed to weigh down on them too heavily, and almost simultaneously, they jumped to the stories they knew by heart.

How Octavia burped after taking her first sip of moonshine and seemed to be so surprised that they realized she had never burped before (probably from how little she had to eat all those years before the guards found her); how Monty muttered loving words of Space, Moon, the ocean and berries in his sleep; how Finn woke up one day with moustaches and a unibrow, both made out of mud, and how he walked around the whole day in oblivion, not even noticing all the people that laughed at him; how when Monty tripped and fell into the mud one day, the boys were on him immediately, helping him up, while 3 girls offered to wash his clothes (they all knew it wasn’t just about his possibility to make the alcohol – everyone loved him in earnest); how Raven had a really good grip on alcohol, but really liked getting _really_ drunk, and mostly just used the word _'really'_ when she got _reeeeeeally_ drunk; how Octavia used to sing songs in an awful intonation every single morning, waking up the whole camp, ignoring their groans and going on about her business, with her _brother_ making sure no one stepped in her way or tried to make her shut up – _he_ loved her songs.

„Y'know what – I bet Octavia is okay. She's tough. She's smart. She wasn't in the camp when we shut the door – she must've gotten away.“ Clarke told Jasper.

He sighed loudly. „I wish I could make myself believe that, Clarke.“

When she frowned and raised her head from his shoulder, he shrugged.

„You _know_ she's strong –„

„Clarke.“ He stopped her. „Do you think _Bellamy_ made it? Do you think Finn and him are alive and that that theory is possible even though it's been a day and they're not here?“

Clarke found herself unable to say anything.

It wasn’t about Jasper not believing in Octavia’s strength. It was about him not being strong enough to suffer through false hope.

Just like Clarke.

„You think Bellamy would leave _you_ on your own? Leave us _all_ alone? And even if you take that as a possibility, does thinking of him not hurt like _hell_ right now?“

She realized she had dug her nails into the ground.

„Octavia...“ Jasper's eyes were roaming all over the sky, the ground, restless and huge with pain and longing so mighty she thought his sorrow was tangible. „I love her, I think. So I know – I know how it feels to think about him, or how it's easier to ignore him completely right now. You should know that that's how it feels for me, too, when it comes to Octavia.“

He looked at her then, a question, a _demand_ in his eyes, something steel strong in his glare that she almost welcomed after seeing him so weak and broken.

But when she remained silent, he huffed and let out a bitter bark of laughter. „Who am I kidding? He got you bad. I, at least, can endure saying her name. You can't even say his _name_.“

It was true. She couldn't. Saying his name in a sentence that would make her acknowledge him as someone gone, someone dead, and someone else _lost_ for her, it was unbearable.

„How do you know?“ she rasped, tears spilling out and her voice shaking. „How do you know that what – what I feel for him is the same thing you feel for Octavia?“

She never said anything to anyone to make them think she had someone in her heart that wasn't Finn. For a while she had been wondering where her undying affection for Spacewalker had gone, and for even longer she was contemplating on how and why that _freaking_ rebel king had such an impact on her whenever he was around.

But Jasper laughed again. „It's so _obvious_ , _Clarke_! Even if there was someone in the camp not thinking you two were more than just partners in leadership, your complete lack of character after the blast-off had made up for that! We all knew you had a thing for Finn, but also, when Finn started trailing after you as a lovesick puppy he truly was, it was _obvious_ that whatever you felt was not strong enough to get in the way of your better judgement, your reason. You've never had much logic to your actions when it came to Bellamy. And he never had any cruelty when it came to you.“

His last few sentences were soft, quiet, heart-felt.

But he didn’t stop there. “Most of all…” he paused and waited for her to raise her head and look up into his eyes. He softly touched her chin with his index finger, passively keeping her there, looking at him. “He looked at you the way I looked at Octavia.” Clarke took a sharp intake of breath. Jasper swallowed a lump. “And you, unlike Octavia, never looked away.”

„He can't be dead, Jasper.“ She muttered, her eyes falling heavily onto the ground. Was it just her imagination, or was there a part of Bellamy's honest strength dwelling inside Jasper's eyes? Did he really have so much effect on the boy to make Jasper grow into the role of the man he admired?

„What?“

„He can't be dead.“ She repeated, this time with more strength and more emotion. „Because – because it's _impossible_ to go on without him. _Not_ just for me, for us! He – I... it was never supposed to go this way. If I – I could have died, okay? _Not_ him. If I had died, he would've used it well. To bring more strength, more _passion_ to the people. I can't do that! We all know we're lost without him. He _was_ our strength, _our heart_.“

And to him Clarke had apparently given her own.

„Clarke...“ Jasper swallowed. „I know it's really unimaginable to think right now, but you're wrong. You'll do good. He had an effect on you.“ He clenched his jaw before speaking in a lower voice. „On all of us.“

Clarke stared at him for a while, feeling her heart calm and her breathing calm and the tears dissolve.

„Did he sleep with Raven?“

„Huh?“

„The night Finn and I were taken by the Grounders.“

Jasper frowned. „I'm not gonna lie, she went to his tent and didn't come out for a while, but... I don't know. Maybe they talked.“

Raven and Bellamy weren't talkers. They were both too impulsive.

„Yeah.“ She said. „Yeah, maybe.“

Jasper patted her shoulder. „I, um, maybe we could share this baby tonight? For the sake of old times?“ he wiggled the bottle in his hand. „Seems like the right thing to do.“

Clarke let out a soft laugh, earning herself a small smile from Jasper. „What the hell – let's get drunk.“

 

But that was for the night – she still had things to do, and she was sure Jasper was going to get on with business, too.

She heard the rumours about Raven and Bellamy (she made herself think of his name so she could slowly find the strength to speak his name one day) when they started preparing for the fight. A few glances, a few muttered words that were mostly not for Raven's or Bellamy's ears easily got to Clarke's.

She just didn't expect it to hurt as much as it did.

„It didn't feel good.“

Clarke spun around on her heel, realizing Raven was only pretending to be asleep. „Huh?“

Black eyes were back to their usual sharpness and strength. „With Bellamy. We have slept together.” Raven took a deep breath. “But it was all wrong. And he definitely wasn't looking for it. It was my fault, and I actually think he tried making me stop, in a way that was comple – „

„I don't want to hear about it.“ Clarke snapped. She trained her eyes on the wounded girl, the genius, the mechanic, the perfect _'first at everything'_ girl that even her mother seemed to prefer at times.

„You asked – „

„I did. But I didn't ask for details. I just thought...“ she closed her eyes for a second and took a deep breath. „Well. It wouldn't have hurt much if you'd told me yourself.“

„Clarke, you know there wasn't any time for those talks.“ Raven said, shaking her head slightly. She looked so tired. „And after all, it's not like it's any of your business.“

That was a fair point. But something about the way Raven looked at her told her the other girl knew that it was hell of an important thing for her. Because of him.

„You love Finn.“ Clarke said.

„And you don't.“

Clarke heard the unspoken. _You love Bellamy, and_ I _don’t_ , Raven meant to say.

She didn't think not loving someone back could ever make her feel guilty, but when Finn had said those words to her, just before they reached the camp, Clarke felt only a small pang as a reminder of the heartbreak and a whole lot of guilt later when she shut the door to the dropship.

 

Clarke cried her heart out that night, half on the forest ground and half in Jasper's arms once he found her, the promised bottle in his one hand as he stroked her hair with his other. She thought she felt his tears fall on her head, but she wasn't sure.

Drinking actually helped to get some of the weight off her heart. Jasper ranted about Octavia, finally agreeing that there was a slight chance that she was alive, and then proceeding to tell Clarke about how amazing the younger Blake truly is. Clarke laughed and smiled and drank when he let the bottle out of his hands, but also cried a bit through the laughter, because Octavia was her friend, too.

She didn't talk about Bellamy until Jasper finally finished his long rant about Octavia, and by then she was fairly certain they were both on their drunkest point ever.

Even then, she started off with Finn, telling Jasper how the boy had a wonderful, kind heart, but he was still a boy, and didn't have a head for the amount of love he had given and received. He hurt people by loving too much.

„What about Bellamy?“

Clarke snorted. „Have you noticed his relationship with Octavia? That guy would hurt anyone he loved if it meant they'd be safe, and especially anyone that tried to hurt someone he loved.“

And that was how it began. Jasper asked questions and Clarke laughed or cried and gave long answers.

„Did you guys ever hug?“

Clarke was a bit taken aback with that one. „Huh. Not really, but... that night we saw the dropship crash, he was with me and he kinda held me from behind while I... you know. Cried a tiny.“

Jasper laughed too hard at that one. „Cried a tiny!“

„Yeah, well.“ Clarke shrugged. „I think it helped me.“

He sobered up almost immediately. „You know that means he really cared, yeah?“

„I thought we were past that point.“ Clarke smiled drunkenly. „He's fucking dead. I don't think it matters whether he loved me or hated me.“

Jasper rolled his eyes and fell back. „I thought we were friends, Clarke! _Friends don't lie to each other_!“

He sounded like a desperate drunk, his arms waving in the air as he lay on the ground.

She laughed and waited for the next question, because honestly, Clarke was afraid to think about Bellamy's feelings.

„How did you manage to close the door, leaving them behind?“

„Probably in a fit of something with doing the right thing, but mostly so I would hate myself forever and suffer eternally.“

„That was... brave. Amazing, even. You saved all of us. I don't think anyone else could've done that.“ Jasper sat up again and seemed to be swaying in spot. Or maybe she was? „But thank the sky, _you_ could. So we're all alive and we'd never let you leave your _leader-y_ position.“

„Thanks, Jas.“ She told him. Maybe she meant it, maybe she didn't. „I love him.“

She didn't really know why she had said that, and she wasn't even thinking about him in that moment. But it just... got out.

„I think.“ She added.

Jasper stayed silent for a while.

„I honestly thought you were the smart one out of the bunch of us, but you seem to be the last to have figured that out.“

 

So, she loved him.

Clarke loved Bellamy and she loved him even though she knew his flaws so well she could go into rants about each of them, and even though he knew hers and would had made her so frustrated with that knowledge sometimes, and even though he laughed at her when she was the angriest, she loved him, because she knew his laughter wasn't mean, and never would be.

Especially now, with the fact that he was dead.

But why couldn't she settle down with that fact?

Probably because almost a month later, she was running into his arms. Warm arms, and soft, muffled words against her neck, his breath tickling her, his heart ramming in his chest so hard she could feel it. Never had the human anatomy been so amazing.

Jasper had become her closest friend, and the night _they_ came back, the two of them were on watch.

Bellamy and Finn had Monty between them, both supporting a part of his weight. They were all dressed in battered clothes that didn't seem to belong to them, and all seemed rather weak, but Monty was the palest.

Still, as Jasper dashed toward them, his best friend gave him a huge grin before he was engulfed in a strong hug that pulled him away from the other two men.

Clarke stared for a while before stepping forward. Bellamy's eyes were on her, on the camp behind her, and on her again. Finn was nowhere to be seen.

When she realized that his skin was paler than ever and that his cheeks had those shadows from losing weight, and that he didn't look very stable on his feet anymore, she started running.

She held him tightly around the waist and he put his arms around her, pulling her completely into him.

„ _Clarke_.“ He breathed and she wondered how she was ever able to live through a day without his voice.

 

Apparently, the Mountain Men didn't exist anymore.

Bellamy and Finn were taken by them after the blast-off, found in one of the caves near the camp. There, Bellamy was placed in a room opposite of Monty's, and they had somehow established communication by gestures and signs. Somehow, when Bellamy managed to knock out a guard when he came in, carrying the food, and free Monty and then Finn, they managed to get to the surveillance room and Monty activated the self-destruction mode. They had ten minutes to get out of reach of the explosion, and that they did only barely.

They didn't know if there were any survivors that managed getting out in time, but even if there were, that was nothing to fear. They would be too few, with nothing to work with.

„How many...“

„It's 70 of us with you three back.“ Clarke cut into his question. „We did good.“

He nodded, his eyes searching hers. He was still holding her, his fingers tightly gripping her upper arms, and she still held his shirt. „ _You_ did.“

But she knew she didn't. „We did, Bellamy.“

And maybe he wasn't there for a month, but he had never left her heart, and Clarke knew that was why she was coping with the new position of being the only leader in the camp. Because with him in her heart, she never truly made the decisions based only on her thoughts.

 

Loving didn't come easy for him, either.

He loved his mother, who was dead, he loved his sister, who was gone.

Bellamy just didn't see hope until the day the golden princess spilt red blood while humming a soothing song, guiding one of her own people into the land of darkness. Atom died so peacefully, the way Bellamy had never seen anyone die before, or after. And he witnessed death a lot.

Clarke's dark deed was the only thing that seemed to ignite a light inside his chest, and he knew he was screwed.

It didn't come easy considering their constant fight, either. Half the time he wanted to shut her up and the other half he wanted to do it specifically with his mouth.

It was good, actually, feeling something normal after surviving through pain for years. Maybe falling in love wasn't a very safe, painless thing, but Bellamy thought he deserved it. He deserved the soft pain at the sight of her with Finn, the soft hum of pleasure when one of her smiles was directed at him and only, _only_ him.

 

Octavia came back a few days after them. Lincoln was with her, but he didn't stay.

„I brought her back.“ He told Bellamy as  the man held his sister in his arms. „Because she wanted to come back. But I can't stay.“

Bellamy realized that was why Octavia's whole body was trembling and her tears fell constantly down her cheeks. He almost asked 'why not?' for the sake of his sister. But he thought he understood Lincoln.

So he just nodded and thanked him before leaving his sister with the man again, letting them have their goodbye.

Clarke was waiting for him at his tent.

„He's not gonna stay.“ Bellamy said before she had the time to ask. „And he didn't ask about Anya.“

Anya was released, as he learned, not long after the blast-off. She had promised to keep herself, and anyone else from her tribe away – if they were alive. Bellamy didn't know all the details, but he found out from Jasper that their princess had spent quite a lot of time alone with the Grounder princess.

 

A while after Octavia's return, Bellamy had finally started to feel at home again.

The night when Monty and Jasper handed out their new, improved moonshine (first in over a month for all of them), Bellamy felt a strange déjà vu when Clarke approached him, and he wasn't drunk once more. This time though, she wasn't looking for anything but him. Not fun, not alcohol.

„You enjoying the view?“ she asked with a smile. They stood a little away from everyone else, looking at their people and their home and _their everything_.

But as Bellamy faced her to answer the question, words got stuck in his throat and he stared at her for a moment too long.

She was beautiful. Clarke, princess, nevermind.

Everything about her was beautiful and it pained him sometimes, how she took his heart in a flash.

“I now am.” He said as he faced the camp again with a toothy grin.

She shuffled a little closer to him, and he saw her from the corner of his eyes, he saw her glancing up at him. Her shoulder almost touched his, and he felt like he was burning.

“How so?” she asked, and he heard the smile in her words. Clarke seemed to smile an awful lot these days, considering they just got out of a war. Well, maybe that was why she smiled that much.

Bellamy selfishly hoped she had only started smiling when he came back.

“I’ve got a certain someone by my side now, to share the pleasure with.” He said and purposefully didn’t look at her.

He could almost feel her jumpiness, how she wanted him to look at her. Or maybe that was him, wanting to drink her in with his eyes.

“And by pleasure, you mean…?”

Clarke’s retort left him so startled his head simply snapped to look at her, him mouth slightly open.

She started laughing, joyfully, endearingly (for him, he knew he was supposed to keep away from a light thing like her), lovingly.

“Don’t look so shocked!” she gasped through the laughter.

But he wasn’t really shocked anymore, he was just frozen in spot with the way her cheeks flushed, how radiant she looked with that big smile on her face, how her eyes seemed alight with happiness. _Laugh more, laugh more_ , he thought. And then he decided to make it one of his tasks – to make her laugh more.

And to think that once he thought his responsibility was to make her angry as much as possible.

“How can I _not_ be shocked, I just witnessed the _fair princess_ make a dirty remark!” a small smile made his lips twitch upwards before he succeeded in making himself look startled once more. “Who are you and what have you done with the celestial, unhuman princess of this camp?”

“Oh, she was here just to make sure the lot of you stayed alive. Or as many of you as she could save.”

Her smile fell a bit and Bellamy decided to toss away the indication to the dead they have buried. She deserved one whole night of happiness. “Then I would _love_ to meet this new princess.”, he offered her a small smile. He’d have smirked if she was any other girl, but he didn’t want to charm her into his bed, he wanted to make her feel better so she could sleep through a night in any bed. Even if he had to stay away from her. He’d make her better.

“Maybe you’ll get a chance to.” She accepted his smile, giving him one of her own. He felt drunk with pride. It was a small miracle to have Clarke Griffin’s honest smile directed at oneself.

They shared a long moment before she slowly walked away.

Bellamy stared after her, not being able to stiffen the big smile that broke his face in two.

 

He didn’t have any more private moments with her that night. But he didn’t mind. He liked taking small steps with her, and she was right about being a new person.

The new Clarke was still the passionate, strong person she used to be, but her scowls were replaced with smiles, her shouts of warning replaced with booming laughter, her concerned words in the dropship now directed to people that sprained an ankle or fractured a bone, people that weren’t stabbed by a sword or arrow or pierced with a spear.

They still argued a bit, but it was more bickering than anything. Like how many people he took hunting (she always insisted he took too few to keep him safe, and he always had to remind her that the fewer the better, because it was mostly _him_ keeping _them_ safe), or how she couldn’t go out picking flowers on herself (they were plants, for healing people, she had said, and she never went out of the camp’s sight, but he didn’t care).

Slowly, as the time went by, they started taking people off the wall during the night. At first, there were at least 15 people on all sides, so close to each other that they didn’t even have to shout to keep in contact. Two months after the blast-off, Bellamy and Clarke agreed that 10 were enough. Two weeks after that, Dustin and Kayla fell asleep, and the next day, Bellamy carried Kayla to her tent without waking her up, and Clarke softly woke up Dustin only to usher him to his tent. They kept the watch at the number of 8 for another month, and then finally decided to make the final number 5, placing one person at each side of the camp’s walls, close enough so they could see one another, but too far to hear without shouting on top of their lungs. Which no one would do, with the rest of the camp asleep.

The camp’s life started getting easier and easier. They grew accustomed to living there rather than inside the Ark, they all found their skills at certain things, some of them training with Clarke for the medical skill, some of them training with Bellamy considering hunting, defence (Clarke found him at the campfire one night, telling a group of younger kids a story that happened a long time ago on Earth, and it took her only a week to get him to start history lessons with whoever wanted to come; a surprising number of 23 came by, some of them 17 even), some of them went to Raven and Monty to learn about physics, science and electronics, some of them went to Jasper (usually Monty was there to help, too) for chemistry, and Octavia and Clarke took the youngest one day and started painting over a huge tent no one was using, which ended up being the most beautiful, colourful thing the camp had (they put it up on the inside of the camp’s walls, and over the months and years it became the first of the many paintings on the wall).

It took them almost 10 days to finish the paining, and during the 5th day, Clarke was helping Bry, a little girl of 7, paint a big crowned sun. The girl froze suddenly, her stained hands still splayed over the fabric (they actually just dipped their hands in the paint Monty and Jasper mixed, and then ran it in shapes over their ‘canvas’).

“What’s wrong?” Clarke asked when she noticed Bry’s lack of motion, and then followed her stare somewhere behind Clarke’s back. “Bellamy!”

But he just stood there, staring at the girl beside Clarke, where the two of them knelt on the ground.

Clarke’s heart dropped and ached as she saw the broken reflection in Bellamy’s eyes, not needing to ask to know what his silence meant.

She saw him swallow a big lump in his throat before he spoke. “Your hair looks really nice.”

Bry blinked and smiled. “Thanks, Clarke helped me braid it.”

As Bellamy’s eyes turned to Clarke, her own fell to the ground. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever made, a braid Charlotte showed her how to make, only a day before… well, Murphy.

“That’s really, uh, nice. Clarke.” He cleared his throat and she looked up, seeing his face filled with discomfort and, _oh so obvious_ , pain etched on his features.

“Wanna help?” she blurted out.

He looked down, slightly frowning. “Huh?”

Clarke quickly glanced at Bry, who smiled and nodded in excitement. “Want to help us paint?”

He stared at her for a while, reminding her of how he stared at her that night after Octavia’s return, the night she dared to flirt with him openly, and the night she saw him smile more openly, more genuinely than ever before. Then his lips slowly pulled up into a soft smile. “Sure.”

He settled down on Bry’s other side, and she proceeded with filling him into what she wanted the sun to look like, and how the crown was supposed to be designed.

Clarke watched him with the girl, how he took her words as the most important command he had ever heard, like every detail about the silly painting meant one more day on Earth. She caught the little twinges of pain whenever Bry looked a bit too much like Charlotte, and how his own rare words seemed to be strained with will to keep the girl smiling and happy and carefree.

His curls were shining in the sun, his eyes twinkling with so many emotions, his freckles caressing his skin like heavenly kisses, his mouth so soft yet so devilish when she thought of them, his hands careful with the paint and movements, following the path of Bry’s words.

When the three of them finally finished the sun and started on with the crown, Bry almost squealed in delight every time Bellamy asked “Like this?”, “What now?”, “How am I supposed to do the jewel? How can you make it look so good?!” and then Bry said “Because I am better than you!” and he laughed and laughed and laughed before carefully nudging the girl with his shoulder and affectionately muttering “That you are, princess.”.

Clarke’s heart broke. Not in the bad way. It broke from the sheer happiness she felt, so radiant and celestial it burst in warm waves in her body. And, unfortunately, in her eyes.

“I’ll be back in a bit.” She said and jumped up, running toward the dropship.

She quickly dug out a clean rag and went up to the highest level, closing the hatch before curling into a shadowed corner, letting everything out in a fit of tears.

Clarke wasn’t over the deaths and despair, not even after almost a half a year. And she didn’t cry since the night Jasper and her had drank that bottle of moonshine that they had then thought was the last they would ever taste.

Her fingers trembled as she tried to wipe away the tears, and then stained them with new tears. She leaned her head against the metal of the dropship wall and pulled her knees up to her chest. She put her hands around her stomach and let her hair cover her face, so nothing, not even the emptiness could see the water on her cheeks, all that was left of so many good people she knew and loved. All she could let out of the love she now felt for the other people.

Bellamy gave her a few minutes before following in. She knew he had, because the hatch opened almost soundlessly, and he closed it before coming to her side, sitting down against the wall and pulling her gently into his lap, letting her tears soak into his shirt.

“Charlotte?” he murmured.

“And everyone else.” She answered.

His grip on her tightened and he put a soft, blooming kiss on top of her head. “You know you’re still my number one princess?”

She let out a shaky laugh and he touched her cheek, making her pull away as he wiped the tears on her face. His fingers survived without a fresh wave of tears.

“I’d call you my prince, but…” she grimaced, hoping her eyes weren’t too red or too puffy as he laughed and looked at her. Though with the distance between their faces, there was barely any air to breathe, let alone details to hide. Clarke never was very able to hide anything from him. “The word around the camp is that you’re the king.”

“Hmm.” He hummed. “You know how the queens are made, though, right?”

She smiled and raised her eyebrows in question.

“Well, the royalty never messed with non-royal blood, as bad as that is. But still, it makes a nice story. The king had little choice when it came to marriage, but it was always a princess that became a queen by marrying him.”

“What if they weren’t happy?”

Bellamy scoffed. “It didn’t matter, Princess. It was politics.”

“Is there a point to this story?”

He brushed a few strands of hair out of her face, almost absently. “You are a Princess.”

“So I’m your only choice?”

“Hell, no!”

She laughed at his shudder.

“But you’re the only choice I need.”

Maybe the words were romantic by themselves, but Bellamy Blake wasn’t very romantic. He was sometimes rude, mostly cocky and snarky and sassy, but with her and moments that involved the two of them alone, he was the most honest person you could find. And so his words were spoken with mere honesty, the lines of his face suddenly softening into a striking vulnerability, his eyes melting away any trace of pain she might’ve had in the moment. Clarke was reminded of the day they killed Dax (if it weren’t for her, Bellamy would’ve been dead, so Clarke wouldn’t let it be only his kill), when she told him that she needed him.

In a way, it took Bellamy six months, but he said it back. The only choice he needed.

She wanted to say something, anything (probably an ‘I need you’, again) but he replaced the words with his lips and she let him.

She thought there might’ve been a bit of paint on his lips, because they tasted like those red berries she was so sad to see Monty use for colour since they were really tasty, but he mostly tasted like life and joy and promises as unbreakable as rocks.

Clarke pushed herself closer to him, making him lean further against the wall, and she felt his hands softly touch her hips. She broke away from him with a soft, shuddering sigh, and he hummed softly before raising one hand up to her neck, caressing her cheek with his thumb as he pulled her back into the kiss.

Her thoughts became too chaotic to focus on as his lips pressed more urgently against hers, soft flesh sliding against one another, and a blissful haze took over her mind when the kiss deepened and his tongue touched hers.

Afterword, when they pulled away, breathing heavily and sharing smiles so wide they seemed engraved onto their faces, Clarke remembered the first time the door to the dropship opened. She remembered thinking there would never be anything so wonderful, so perfect, that air could never feel so light and that she could never feel so happy and amazed.

Bellamy leaned up to place a lingering kiss on her forehead.

Clarke closed her eyes and placed her hand over his heart, knowing that Earth couldn’t even begin to compare itself to Bellamy.

( _Oh… hell_ )

**Author's Note:**

> I really enjoy these character and I doubt I made them sound anything like their usual selves, but I really COULD imagine them acting like this and saying stuff like this. Maybe it's just my crazy shipper voice but ehhhhhhh. 
> 
> Feedback would be nice, it sorta keeps me alive during all days. 
> 
> Cheers!


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